


an itemized list of thirty years of disagreements

by Sanna_Black_Slytherin



Series: The Other 51 [50]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Aromantic James Madison, Asexual James Madison, Dialogue, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Memorials, No Romance, Weehawken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-16 14:00:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10572753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanna_Black_Slytherin/pseuds/Sanna_Black_Slytherin
Summary: “This might sound like a very random question, but have you experienced– dreams, I suppose is one way of describing it—memories that you have no conscious recollection of acquiring?”“You have a very polite way of asking me whether I'm delusional."“You're avoiding my question."





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [history has its eyes on you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9780929) by [Sanna_Black_Slytherin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanna_Black_Slytherin/pseuds/Sanna_Black_Slytherin). 



> Technically, Hamilton and Madison knew each other a little under twenty years but meh details.

James paused in front of the statue. Ridiculous though it was, he felt its eyes bore into him, glaring. James wouldn't blame it if it did. After all, he hadn't exactly been on the best of terms with the man it depicted. He didn't regret it, even in retrospect, as he had acted according to his own beliefs at the time, and he didn't believe that he was in the wrong, but it did not blind him from the fact that, objectively speaking, he hasn't been kind to Alexander Hamilton.

(Admittedly, the bulk of his antagonistic interactions with Hamilton arose as a result of Thomas' rivalry with man, but James had never been one to shy away from the consequences of his own actions.

Actually, he amended after a moment's thought, his past self's actions, if one were to be precise, but James could not think back to a single moment when he hadn't remembered having been James Madison—sometimes in all too vivid a detail.)

The sound of approaching footsteps alerted him to the presence of another individual. While visitors were by no means unusual, James conceded, considering Hamilton's recent fame thanks the the musical, the fact that someone went to the lengths of coming across the Hudson just to see Weehawken at so late an hour _was_ somewhat surprising. Most people were drawn here at dawn—at the time of the duel. This was precisely why James had decided to come at dusk—besides the sunset, of course, which was a reason in and of itself. It was one of the few things James was capable of genuinely admiring in New York, prejudiced as he was against Hamilton's self-styled hometown.

The footsteps stopped abruptly, as if only now noticing James' presence, then slowly picked up again. The figure finally came into James' view—a man in his thirties, wearing a charcoal-black suit that matched his eyes. The man eyed James. “I must admit that I didn't expect another person here,” he said in lieu of a greeting, his voice calm and soothing.

“Neither did I,” James returned in the same manner.

“I simply—“ the man spoke, only to be halted by James' raised palm.

“You don't need to explain yourself,” he said, “and especially not to a virtual stranger. What you do is your own business.”

The man considered this, then, unexpectedly, offered his hand. "My name's Evan Summers,” he said.

James blinked at the non-sequitur, but shook it. "Alex Harrison," he offered his given name. There was no need for James to delve into the obscure intricacies of his personal identity, as complicated by his past life.

The irony of his name did not escape his attention—neither, as it turned out, the stranger's.

"Alex, huh?" the man said teasingly. "The same as Hamilton over there?"

"Unfortunately," James replied wearily. "Though not the same person, thank God."

“Not a fan of Hamilton, then?” Evan asked, taking a seat on the nearby bench.

James chose to remain standing. “I'm more of a Jeffersonian myself,” he answered evasively; it was the truth, after a fashion. He had been much more fond of Thomas than he had been of Hamilton, even in the days of their early acquaintance—before Hamilton decided to tear up the newly-written Bill of Rights and abuse the power constitutionally granted to the federal government. He and Thomas held similar beliefs—though not always identical: Thomas had argued against a public condemnation of John Adams, who was, at the time, a close friend of Thomas', while James had staunchly advocated the idea of exposing the character of a president who was so distant and remote with his cabinet that its three chief members had had to resort to asking Hamilton for advice. Still, Madison and Jefferson had been one of history's most powerful partnerships.

“That begs the question,” Evan replied, “of what you are doing in front of the memorial raised to the memory of Alexander Hamilton.”

“I was in the vicinity,” James said vaguely, which, again, was true enough; he did not elaborate that the reason for his vicinity to Weehawken was his intention to visit the seven of Hamilton's final—and, ultimately, fatal—disagreement.

Evan raised an eyebrow. “That still doesn't explain why a Jeffersonian would choose to visit this particular place,” he pointed out. His fingers had found a lighter in a pocket, and he began twirling it around his fingers.

James let out a heavy sigh. “No, it doesn't,” he acknowledged. He did not speak for a long moment, and Evan did not pressure him. “I don't fully know why I'm here,” James said at length. “If I had to make a guess, I'd say that I wanted to see for myself the place where the unstoppable force that was Hamilton finally met his match.”

“You sound as if you had been acquainted with him,” Evan remarked with no small amount of amusement.

James internally cursed his slip-up, even as he responded, a playful smile gracing his lips. “Hamilton lived over two hundred years ago, sir. I couldn't possibly have known him,” he told Evan idly.

“You'd be surprised,” Evan murmured under his breath, in all probability not intending for James to overhear his words; therefore, James did not indicate that he did. Evan stood up and, reading into one of his suit's deceptively deep pockets, withdrew a lone candle, which he then ignited with the lighter. He gingerly placed the candle at the base of the statue, then backed away until he was able to take in the whole scene at a single glance, pocketing the lighter as he did so.

James belatedly stepped aside, feeling oddly uncomfortable intruding on what was obviously a private moment. Evan shot him a sheepish smile. “No need to do that,” he halted James' retreat. “It's just an old tradition of mine,” he explained.

At that, James made a choking sound, causing Evan to look at James in obvious concern. “Are you alright?” the other man asked, reaching out to put a hand on James' shoulder.

James waved away the man's attention. Evan's hand fell away. “Yes, I'm fine,” he hesitated, an uncomfortable sensation coiling itself around his stomach not unlike a python ready to strangle its victim. “This might sound like a very random question, but have you experienced– dreams, I suppose is one way of describing it—memories that you have no conscious recollection of acquiring?” he asked tentatively.

Evan scoffed. “You have a very polite way of asking me whether I'm delusional,” he observed, sitting back down on the bench. “How very _British_ of you.”

James groaned, though it came out half-hearted. “It's the accent, isn't it?” he asked rhetorically.

Evan either did not hear the irony in James' voice, or else seemed to disregard it. “I'm afraid so.”

“You're avoiding my question,” James informed him in a somewhat firmer voice, though still not meeting Evan's eyes.

Evan looked back at the statue, as if finding Hamilton's hands fascinating. “I am, aren't I?” he muttered under his breath. “As insane as it's going to sound, the answer to your question is _yes_.”

When James chanced a look at Evan, it was the man's turn to resolutely avoid James' eyes. “It's not insane,” James eventually told him in what he hoped was a reassuring voice. He made as if to sit down next to Evan, then stopped, unsure of whether he was permitted to; Evan, seeing his aborted movement, gestured at the bench invitingly. James tentatively sat down, making sure to keep a respectable distance between himself and his conversation partner.

“Who _are_ you, really?” Evan asked, and either James' mind was beginning to imagine things, or the man was visibly steeling himself for James' response. For the sake of his mental sanity, James hoped for the latter.

James sighed, his mind warring over whether to tell Evan the truth. “You're not going to believe me,” he warned Evan, his mind made up.

“Try me,” Evan challenged.

James shook his head, as if to dispel his thoughts. “James Madison.”

Evan stilled, watching him with scrutinizing eyes as if searching for something. Then, unexpectedly, he grinned. “Nice to see you again, Mr Madison. Eliza Schuyler Hamilton at your service,” Once again, Evan offered his hand.

“Eliza?” James echoed, shaking the hand in sort of a daze. “But you're—“ he glanced down at Evan's body pointedly.

Evan—Eliza?—scoffed. “We both know that reincarnation isn't restricted to such petty details as sex, let alone gender,” she—he?—laughed softly. “If there's one thing that I've come to realize,” his conversation partner went on, “it is that gender is such a meaningless concept, if you think about it. It's a social construct used to enforce certain kinds of behaviours on certain individuals, and punish them should they not adhere, and I refuse to participate in it.”

“Which do _you_ prefer?” James asked, his mind processing the information he had been presented with.

“You mean, what's my preferred pronoun?” his conversation partner clarified. James nodded. “Well,” there was a thoughtful pause, “I honestly don't know. I don't mind either, I suppose, since I've been both biologically. If it makes it easier for you to think of me as Evan, think of me as male. If Eliza's better, stick with female.”

This was a test of sorts, James thought. If he thought of the person beside him as female, it would indicate a reluctance to let go of the past; if he chose to call them male, it would prove that James wasn't willing to look past physical appearances, and just thinking about it caused a sour taste in his mouth.

_Doomed if you do, doomed if you don't._

In the end, the outrage that coiled inside him every time someone assumed something about James simply because of the way he looked won out. He had been on the receiving end of that kind of behaviour far too many times _(“But you're hot! Why don't you–“)_ to subject anyone else to it. Eliza it was, then.

“Which do you prefer?” Eliza's voice startled James, and he looked up at her.

“What do you mean?” James wrinkled his nose.

Eliza hid a grin behind her palm. “Do you prefer Alex or James?”

The question had not even occurred to him, though it probably should have. “James, please.”

“I wanted to thank you for the kindness you've extended towards my family,” Eliza spoke up just as the silence between them was becoming oppressing.

James wrinkled his brows. “I don't know how detailed your memories are, but I can distinctly remember being anything _but_ towards Hamilton.”

“After his death, I mean,” Eliza clarified, pursing her lips before adding, “When we were low on money, and I was trying to feed seven children while somehow making ends meet, you extended a helping hand and paid me the full wage that Alexander would have earned during those five years serving under Washington, had he not refused the money so as not to seem partial when the discussion of military wages eventually came up.”

“Was that why he declined it?” James hummed. “I had been wondering about that; it didn't make sense at the time, but when you put it like that, it does seem like a typical Hamilton thing to do.”

Eliza smiled wistfully at the statue. “For a man who created the most extensive and sustainable economy in modern history, he could never consider the long-term effects of his actions,” she agreed softly.

“I beg to differ. I believe that he _could,_ and _did_ , but simply dismissed them as irrelevant. From what I had been able to garner from Washington, as well as Thomas' letter exchange with the marquis of Lafayette, Hamilton had always been ready to give up everything for this country—it shouldn't have surprised anybody that his money would have been any different. He _did_ die in deep debt as a result of working for Washington,” James felt the need to point out, “which earned him him a fourth as much as working as an attorney would have paid.”

“Self-sacrificial idiot,” Eliza said with unmistakable fondness.

James shrugged. “Can't argue with that,” he admitted.

“Have you met anyone?” Eliza asked out of the blue.

“Anyone else,” James repeated, “as in any other…” he hesitated, searching for the right word, “reincarnates?”

Eliza rolled her eyes. “What else did you think I meant? I'm not blind,” she gestured vaguely at the twin black rings on James' middle fingers.

“Oh,” James said, realization coursing through him. “ _Oh_ ,” he smiled. “Most people don't recognize that.”

“I'm not 'most people',” Eliza retorted. “I make it my business to know these things. I want to help people, and in this day and age, it means understanding the different types of personal identities, sexualities, and so on. It's just– there's so much that we don't know yet, so much left to discover!” she blurted out passionately, then visibly reigned herself in. James remembered that Eliza, even in her past life, had been a vocal champion of the less fortunate, often giving away food or housing orphans; one girl, if James wasn't wrong, even stayed with the Hamiltons for almost eight years, and Georges Washington de Lafayette, the son of one of Hamilton's closest friends, likewise lived with them for nearly three years.

Eliza was one of those people, James thought absentmindedly, who donated everything she and her closest did not need to charity; he really should not have been surprised that it hasn't changed.

“No, you're not,” he concurred.

Eliza studied him not unlike the way a scientist would study a mathematical equation whose solution evaded them. “You didn't answer my question,” she stated.

“You're the first one I've found,” James told her, “and, to be honest, I long given up any hope of finding anyone else—for a while, I had almost convinced myself that I had dreamed it all up, but the memories had always been too vivid to dismiss as mere creations of a sleep-addled mind.”

Eliza sighed, as if in defeat. “Neither have I," she admitted. "I don't know why I expected otherwise—for the longest time, I thought it was just me, but now I've met _you_ and–“ she paused. “I don't know what I was thinking,” she finally repeated, pulling away from her thought.

“That's understandable,” James nodded in agreement.

They were quiet for a moment before Eliza spoke. “You know, this statue reminds me of what Alexander once said to me. About me,” she swallowed. “He said, _'je ne me comprends pas quand je suis avec toi_.”

“'I don't understand myself when I am around you'?” James translated, thankful for remembering enough French from his conversations with Thomas. He hadn't bothered to take the language again in high school, instead opting for Spanish. “Somehow, that doesn't surprise me in the least.”

Eliza's lips curled up into a smile. “I presume that you've seen the letters he had exchanged with Laurens?”

James could have replied that no, he hadn't been quite _that_ obsessed with Hamilton as to dig through his personal correspondence with one of his war comrades, but, while that was true enough, he _had_ read the letters Eliza was referring to, as part of the extensive research he had done after seeing _Hamilton_ in order to compare how much Miranda had edited.

The letters were… descriptive, to say the least.

“Did you know about them?” James replied.

Eliza pursed her lips again. “The letters, or their relationship?”

“Both,” James replied, now genuinely curious.

She sighed. “After Alexander's death, I had discovered the letters while cataloguing his correspondence.”

“That must have taken quite a bit of time, considering Hamilton's propensity towards loquaciousness.”

“Indeed. Suffice to say, it was a shock,” she winced. “For almost a month, I was convinced that our marriage had only been a cover for him to conceal his inclinations. My sister was the person who finally talked me out of that idea, dismissing it as preposterous,” Eliza smiled. “She said something along the lines of, 'My eyes do not deceive me, dear sister. I know the look Alexander always bestowed upon you, for I had often bestowed the same upon him.'

“As for their relationship… I was aware, both from Alexander's reaction to the letter informing him of Laurens' demise and from his subsequent attachment to Laurens' correspondence, that Alexander's relationship with Lieutenant-Colonel Laurens was somewhat more intimate than the standard friendship, even considering the sheer homoeroticism between men during the 18th century—you should have read his letters to the marquis,” she added, and James didn't feel inclined to inform her that he already had, “but no, I had not suspected that their relationship also had a physical aspect. Which is stupid of me, in hindsight—I have come to discover that, biologically, most males have certain… needs,” she said delicately, waving vaguely in the direction of her abdomen, blushing slightly, “that would have needed satisfying even during— _especially_ during—times of war.”

“No need to dance around the subject, Eliza,” James told her. “I know fully well what phenomenon you are referring to.”

“Yet you do not name it either,” Eliza remarked keenly.

James likewise flushed. “I don't feel comfortable with it. Even back then, I didn't,” he offered as an explanation.

“Ah,” was all Eliza said in response. “I had been wondering about that. You did not have any children, at least not by your wife.”

“Nor by any other woman,” James retorted, somewhat sharper than the situation really warranted. He closed his eyes, visibly regaining his control. “I had never seen the appeal of sexual intimacy, not when there were so many other kinds of intimacy infinitely more pleasant; fortunately, Dolley and I were in agreement.”

Eliza smiled. “So the rumours weren't true, then?” she said teasingly. “You weren't gay for Jefferson?”

James blanched as Eliza's insinuations called forth an abundance of mental images he really could have done without. “No!” he managed, his voice perhaps louder than necessary. “No,” he repeated. “Thomas and I were merely very good friends, and very efficient political partners.”

“He invited you several times to visit him in Monticello,” Eliza noted with amusement.

“He was quite insistent on that point,” was all that James could be bothered to reply with. He chanced a look at Eliza. “But enough about me. Turnabout is fair play, after all. Are _you_ straight this time around?”

He bit his tongue as soon as the words left his mouth, but there was no taking them back. To his surprise, instead of being insulted, Eliza laughed. “I don't like labels. In the simplest of terms, I don't care about the gender of the person I'm dating.”

“Okay,” James swallowed. “What do you do?”

“Is this twenty questions?” Eliza smirked.

“No– well, _yes_ ,” James amended, “but you're free to ignore me. I'm simply curious as to what life you've made for yourself.”

“Fair enough,” Eliza said soothingly. “I'm an activist,” and why did this not surprise James?

“Hamilton would have been proud.”

She sighed. “He would have, wouldn't he? Then again, he would have been proud of anything controversial as long as you did something because you were committed to a certain cause.”

James winced. “When you put it like that, it's not as positive as before.”

Eliza snickered, then decided to change the subject. “You look young.”

“You aren't exactly old yourself,” James returned the backhanded compliment.

Her lips quirked up into a smile. “I know, but I'm thirty-two. You don't look a day over twenty.”

“Still at university. Studying law,” he elaborated at her questioning look.

“Where?” Eliza did not so much press as wonder.

“Oxford, but we're doing an exchange program with Harvard. That's why I'm here, actually. In New York, I mean.”

“Cambridge is still a fair bit away from New York City.”

James looked at the sky beyond the statue, at the city that never slept. Though the sun had long since set, a thousand small dots still lit up the horizon, creating the illusion that it was still light outside. Maybe James should have been worried about being out at so late an hour—considering his skin colour, his posture, his very body, he was the very example of the person in the danger zone—but something told him that he was safe. Besides, even if someone did approach him with ill intentions, he was certain that Eliza's stature would frighten them into keeping a distance. “My friends and I decided that an outing was in order—in Alyssa's words, 'to introduce our favourite Brit to the depravity that was the American nightlife',” he smirked at the memory.

“Yet you're here,” Eliza prompted.

“I didn't feel much like clubbing, not when this city holds so many memories and so much history—most of which I had not been present for, which only reinforced my plan to visit the museums and memorials.”

“You slipped away,” Eliza translated.

“More or less,” James shrugged. “Finding my way here was a happy coincidence, actually. Weehawken wasn't on top of the list of the places I wanted to see, but I more or less lost track of time.”

“You never struck me as disoriented, Mr Madison,” Eliza said teasingly.

“Usually, I try not to be, but it does occasionally happen,” was all James said.

They lapsed again into silence. Eliza finally broke it when she asked, “Do you ever regret having already lived once?”

“No,” James shook his head. “This life is so vastly different from the life of James Madison that I can't really compare the two, finding either lacking. Both are unique. Besides, I enjoy seeing how far humanity has progressed in a mere two hundred years.”

“What about specifically your past life as James Madison?” Eliza pressed.

James huffed. “Not everything; I had tried to live after my own principles and beliefs, ensuring that I wouldn't regret my actions, but sometimes, I had faced terrible choices, where neither option was desirable, and I can't help but wonder–“

“What would have happened, had you chosen differently,” Eliza finished. She closed her eyes. “I met Alexander at a ball," she said apropos nothing, "a party, really, by the old standards, though we called it a ball so as not to alert our parents. For me, it had been love at first sight. The problem was that it was the case for Angelica as well.”

“Angelica?” James frowned, his mouth opening slightly as he understood. “Your sister? Angelica Church?”

“That Angelica,” Eliza confirmed with a nod. “I had been too cowardly to introduce myself to Alexander at first, so Angelica decided to do the job for me. She went over to talk to him, and, as soon as Alexander opened his mouth, I watched as she fell in love with him with every word he spoke. He could easily match her wits—and that's no easy feat; I can count on one hand the amount of people who are or were capable of that—then as well as now. She practically _thrived_ during their conversation, her entire person _lighting up_ like her entire world had come to fruition, and I could feel my hope wither and die like flowers in winter, because I _knew_ , in that moment, that Alexander was _the one_ for Angelica.

“Do you know what's the next thing she did?” Eliza continued, not awaiting his response. “She took his hand and led him to me, clearly intending to introduce the two of us even though I could read in her eyes how much every step towards me pained her. What kills me is that I selfishly _let her_. I let her give up the only chance she had of ever being fully happy, of living with a man who operated on the same level as she did. I knew that I could have fallen in love again—sure, Alexander was charming, but I could have found love again—but Angelica—“ she choked on the name, and only now did James connect Angelica Schuyler to the sister Eliza had mentioned earlier. _”'I know the look Alexander always bestowed upon you, for I had often bestowed the same upon him.'”_ Eliza had paraphrased Angelica's words. James couldn't imagine what it would have felt like, to be so near a person one desired with an intensity he had only ever heard described by others, and yet so impossibly far away.

“It's not your fault,” James said, finally understanding why she had asked him about regret. “I'm not saying that your feelings are invalid, but you shouldn't blame yourself for wanting your own happiness. You shouldn't feel guilty about that; Angelica made her own choices.”

Eliza swallowed. “She made the choice she did because she was a far better person than I was.”

“She made the choice she did because she wanted _you_ to be happy,” James corrected her softly. “From what I've heard of her, both from you and from Thomas and Hamilton, she wouldn't have wanted you to drown in regrets and forget to live your life. She would have wanted you to make a difference in the world.”

Eliza actually smiled at this. “She would have been proud of the progress the world has already made.”

James hummed. They didn't speak for a moment; it occurred to James that, if this is what Eliza felt, then he couldn't even begin to imagine what Burr, if he was like them, must've felt.

He made the mistake of accidentally voicing his thoughts.

“To be honest, I don't really care about what Aaron Burr feels,” Eliza said, the amount of anger in her voice surprising even James. “He shot my husband. He _murdered_ my husband, and didn't even show any remorse.”

“'The world was wide enough for both Hamilton and me',” James quoted.

“He said that _once_ ,” Eliza scowled. “That doesn't make up for a lifetime of reveling in the death of the one person who considered him a true friend. And please don't tell me that he was your friend, or Jefferson's, because we are both intimately acquainted with the way politics works. He was a tool in your hands, and both you and he knew that. We all knew that, but we accepted it because everybody gained something from it.”

“Why didn't you go into politics?” James stared. “You would have been _perfect_ for it.”

Eliza rolled her eyes. “I wouldn't have been able to stand that amount of sheer lies and deception, all in the name of _helping_ our constituents,” her lips curled up into something resembling a snarl.

“Neither did Hamilton,” James said reasonably.

“And look how he ended up,” Eliza pointed out. “Cast out for trying to genuinely help; shunned for speaking the truth.”

“He took 'speaking the truth' to a whole new level,” James conceded.

“Don't get me wrong—I was far from happy with the entire scandal concerning the Reynolds woman, let alone with him sharing the details of our personal life with the world,” Eliza stated caustically, “but I cannot help but think that this kind of honesty would have been what I would have strived towards, had I become a politician, and it would not have ended well for anyone.”

“'Now what I'm gonna say may sound indelicate',” James quoted dutifully, watching Eliza try and fail to stifle a smile.

“Exactly,” she agreed. “And, besides, there are people far better suited for politics. People who actually want the kind of power it offers.”

“Which is all the more reason for you to fight your way in,” James said. “If there's one thing that I've discovered since becoming involved in this country's politics, it is that the people who desire the power the least should be the ones wielding it. In the words of Lord Acton: 'Absolute power corrupts absolutely'. You should go out there and make a difference on a greater scale, because while helping individuals is a good mission and I don't criticize it,” he held up a hand to forestall her protestations, “you are capable of changing so many more lives for the better.”

“You'd be better at it.”

“But I'm not a natural citizen of the United States,” James reminded her.

Eliza shook her head. “I should have understood that your thoughts would lead directly to the highest office. If I did become a politician, I would have been satisfied with a senatorial seat.”

“You would have made a brilliant president,” James encouraged her, though he knew that his words rang untrue.

Eliza smiled. “We both know that's not true. I would have made a _terrible_ president. I care too much.”

“A leader must have empathy towards their people.”

“'Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied',” Eliza quoted in lieu of a response.

“You'll excuse me if I don't take advise from a play in which the two main characters decide to kill themselves because they cannot stomach being away from each other for longer than a day,” James said drily.

“You wouldn't,” Eliza agreed. “How long have you remembered being Madison?” she switched subjects, not feeling quite up to discussing the favourable and unfavourable aspects of a Shakespearian play, interesting though such a discussion might have been with someone of James' intellect and wit.

James furrowed his brows in thought. “Let's put it that way,” he said eventually, “I don't remember _not_ being James Madison.”

“And you still have a British accent?” Eliza's voice was not quite incredulous but very close to it.

“Trust me, I've tried to rid myself of it, but it never quite sticks.”

“Don't,” Eliza advised. When he looked at her in almost tangible surprise, she shrugged. “I'm not saying that I like it, or Britain for the matter, but it makes you sound both innocent and sophisticated, both of which will be to your advantage later on.”

James stared at her. “ _Politics_ ,” he emphasized. “What about you? When did you remember being Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton?”

“When we began to study the Revolutionary War, back in high school. We delved quite deeply into Washington's aides-de-camp, and, Alexander having been Washington's informal chief of staff, our teacher even held a lesson only about Alexander. Back then, I still thought of myself as male, having lacked a comparative point in terms of mental gender, so you can imagine the mortification I felt when I began to regain my memories, only to realize that they were not from a man's viewpoint.”

“Quite a bit changed since then.”

Eliza nodded. “That's what attaining a brand new set of memories will do to you.”

“I wouldn't know,” James reminded her. “Madison's memories have always been intricately interwoven into my life, influencing me from the very start.”

Eliza was about to answer, when a beep coming from her pocket made them both jump. Eliza shot him a sheepish smile as she pulled out her phone. She swore. “I completely forgot about that.”

“What?” James craned his head to catch a glimpse of Eliza's phone, rude though it might be. “Did I detain you? Do you have something you need to do?”

“Not anything that can't be rescheduled,” Eliza said firmly, “but that reminds me—it's almost eleven, and I believe that we both have somewhere we need to be tomorrow.”

“I want to keep in touch,” James told her.

“That had been my plan,” Eliza said amiably. She tapped her phone a few times, then offered it to him. “Your phone number, please.”

James obligingly gave it to her, then added Eliza into his contacts. They both stood up. Eliza once again approached Hamilton's statue, trailing her fingers along Hamilton's coat before resting her palm in his. She squeezed the cold marble, then let go. Turning back to James, Eliza offered him a smile. “Let's get going, shall we?”

As they were leaving, a man stepped out of the shadows, smirking briefly before disappearing back into the shadows from whence he had emerged.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos for understanding the French reference.
> 
> Historical fact: James Madison was fluent in English, Latin (or as fluent as you get when we're talking about a dead language), Greek, and Hebrew; Hamilton spoke English, French, Latin, and Greek (and, if a personal guess of mine is correct, a bit of Spanish, considering the amount of Spanish ships passing through the Caribbean). Jefferson… well. There was English, French, Greek, Latin, Italian, as well as, according to Jefferson himself, Arabic, Irish, as well as Dutch. Furthermore, according to Jefferson himself, he learned Spanish 'over the course of nineteen days while sailing from the United States to France', but which John Quincy Adams called a bullshit claim.
> 
> Thoughts about this?
> 
> In other news: I've got one fic left in the challenge, and, to the surprise of exactly no one, it's going to be _white house 'verse_ , so for those who, for some reason, follow my fics in general, is there anything in particular you'd want to see in the next installment?


End file.
